


A Dark And Stormy Night

by experimentaldragonfire



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Angels & Demons, Ambiguous/Open Ending, F/F, Good Omens AU, Lapidot AU week, or at least only ambiguous if you haven't read the book
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-08
Updated: 2018-08-08
Packaged: 2019-06-23 19:05:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15612960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/experimentaldragonfire/pseuds/experimentaldragonfire
Summary: They meet at the Beginning of all things, two chess pieces at opposite ends of the board.6000 years later, they face the End hand-in-hand.(A Good Omens AU)





	A Dark And Stormy Night

**Author's Note:**

> This ended up FAR LONGER than I intended, and yet covers far less than I wanted it to. However, it's Late and I think it works fine as is, so here you go! Day 3 of Lapidot AU Week was "Angels/Demons/Supernatural AU," so I decided it would be a great chance to write an AU where Lapis and Peridot take on the roles of the main angel/demon in the novel Good Omens (by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman), which is one of my favorite books. You don't have to have read that to enjoy this, though! Hopefully it makes enough sense on its own--though you'll definitely understand the details of the scenario better with knowledge of the book.
> 
> I'm rambling because I've spent a Lot of time on this fic, so I'll just...stop myself now. Thank you for reading, and I really hope you enjoy this! :D

**_The Beginning_ **

                  Peridot yawned and leaned on the hilt of the sword she held, driving its point into the soft, green grass. She knew she should be more appreciative of her position, but honestly, guarding the gates of the Garden was _boring_. Gorgeous, sun-drenched days faded into cool, clear nights—over and over and over again. It was paradise…and being on guard duty in paradise was testing her patience.

                  A soft breeze stirred the untidy feathers of her wings. She was quite proud of them, even though with her short stature, the tips had the unfortunate habit of dragging on the ground behind her unless she made a conscious effort to lift them up a little. Still, though, they were a sign of her status, and she enjoyed being able to show off that she was part of the few angels trusted enough to be sent to Earth.

                  The blonde angel shifted her weight from one foot to the other, glancing up at the determinedly-sunny sky with mild irritation. It wasn’t even past noon yet! She sighed and yanked the sword out of the ground, brandishing it in front of her at an invisible enemy and watching as it burst into flames along the length of the blade.

                  “Whoa!” came a voice from somewhere off to the side. Caught off guard, Peridot whirled around, sword held in what could, generously, be called a defensive stance.

                  “Who’s there? You’re not allowed in!” She frantically scanned the area for signs of life, but still couldn’t find the source of the voice.

                  “Psst. Down here!”

                  Peridot glanced at the bushes in front of her, to finally notice the shifting blue coils of a serpent, lounging under the leaves. She pointed the tip of the sword at the creature.

                  “Hey, could you put that thing away? You could really hurt sssomebody if you forget to turn the flamesss off.” The snake had a sarcastic tone, but Peridot noticed that it shied away from the heat of the blade. She fixed it with a hard glare, but lowered the sword and shoved it back into the ground, point-first.

                  “There, is that okay? You’d better not try anything, though. I’ve only had this job for a few days and I don’t want to be remembered as the one who let evil through the gates of Eden.”

                  “That’ssss a bit rude. You’ve only just met me! I could be harmlessss.” The snake tilted its head, a gleam of light illuminating its golden eyes. “Then again, I guesssss you’re just doing your job.”

                  Peridot narrowed her eyes at her unexpected companion. “You really expect me to believe that? They told us you’d be devious, but I don’t actually know what I was expecting.”

                  She could have sworn the snake gave her a withering look. “Fine, have it your way. I hope you didn’t get too many businesss cards printed, though. Ssssomehow, I get the feeling that your job sssecurity isn’t looking too good.”

                  Leaving Peridot to contemplate that statement, the serpent slipped back into the shadows, the last flick of its tail leaving the grass rustling for a moment. Peridot stared after it for a while, considering the encounter, and then shook her head and went to retrieve her sword. Surely it wouldn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. She’d done her job, anyway—nothing was going to get through the gate while she was there!

 

* * *

 

                  Later on, after everything had gone downhill very fast, Peridot found herself outside the same gate, but this time the weather was anything but fair. She shivered in the unexpected chill, and wrapped her wings more firmly around herself, hoping that they’d keep the worst of the rain off. For the first time, angry dark clouds blocked her view of the stars.

                  “That could have gone…a lot better.”

                  Peridot saw the lithe blue figure come slithering out from the undergrowth, and sighed. _Here we go again_.

                  “You’re back, then. Are you happy, now?” She tapped her foot and glared up at the sky, daring the storm to try and soak her. The snake followed the motion, remaining quiet for a moment.

                  “It seemssss a little harsh, really. It’sss not like they had bad intentionsss. I don’t get why they ssshouldn’t know the difference between what’sss good and what’sss evil, honestly.” Peridot noted that the creature had avoided her actual question.

                  “I mean, it’s…the principle of the thing? But since it was _your_ fault, it must be bad for them to know.” The angel fiddled with her flight feathers, and avoided the snake’s eyes.

                  “Hey, I mean….just doing as I was told. Make a disturbance. Cause some trouble.”

                  “Yeah, but you’re not really capable of doing anything _good_ , are you? Being a demon and all. It’d go against the natural order of things.”

                  The serpent coiled itself into an orderly pile, and glanced back towards the tall Garden gates. “What’sss the point of it all, though? Sssurely it was an inevitable outcome, putting the tree _right there_. If they really weren’t _sssupposed_ to eat the fruit, wouldn’t it be sssomewhere harder to get at?”

                  Peridot sighed. “It’s not right to question the higher-ups. Anyway, that’s the way of it. If you don’t do the Good thing, you deserve whatever punishment you’re given. Well. What I mean is—” she cut herself off, unable to think of a way to articulate her thoughts to the mass of shifting blue scales that was slowly edging closer to the warmth of her leg. She pretended to ignore the snake’s actions, and the snake pretended that she didn’t notice.

                  After a moment, and the snake twining itself halfway up her leg, the serpent broke the silence. “What happened to that sssword, by the way? Don’t want to leave that out in this damp. I don’t care if it _is_ holy, you can’t tell me it won’t end up as a holy pile of rust without proper care.”

                  Peridot cleared her throat uncomfortably. “It’s…um. I. It wasn’t necessary to continue possessing such an object in order to most effectively perform my current duties. So I performed an act of charity in order to maximize its efficiency in terms of acting as a means of protection.”

                  The snake took a minute to process the statement, squeezing Peridot’s leg to the point where it was just barely painful. “You mean you…gave it away?”

                  “They just looked so miserable! It couldn’t have been right to let them leave without anything to protect themselves, or make a fire—it’s not like they ever actually needed to _learn_ how to do that back here.” Peridot went from twining her feathers between her fingers to worrying them with her teeth. The serpent made a choked hissing sound that might have been interpreted as a laugh.

                  “You really wouldn’t be able to do evil if you tried, would you?”

                  “Why would I _try_ to do _evil_?”

                  The snake dropped off of Peridot’s leg, and slithered far enough away to be able to look at her in the eyes.

                  “We’re the ones who are _sssupposed_ to know the difference between good and evil, aren’t we? Strange how even we aren’t sssure. It’d be funny if you’d done the wrong thing, and I’d done the right one, wouldn’t it?”

                  “I don’t think it would be particularly funny,” Peridot remarked. The snake returned to her subdued state and slunk back towards the warmth of Peridot’s feet as the first heavy droplets of rain began to fall from the sky.

                  “No, it probably wouldn’t be,” she conceded, and coiled herself back around the angel’s leg. The unlikely pair stayed there in the silence for a while, watching the world’s first thunderstorm slowly rumble itself across the lush, rolling hills, and pretending that they both were more certain about the current situation than they really were.

 

* * *

 

**_The End_ **

 

After 6000 years of buildup, it was somewhat of a letdown that the Apocalypse was going to happen on what was otherwise a really nice day.

                  It was all coming to a head now. The Four Horsepersons had been defeated, but neither side had been particularly happy about that. For the first time in centuries, Peridot was truly scared.

                  She felt somebody lay a hand on her shoulder, and looked up to see Lapis’ slightly singed visage. The demon was, however, still hiding her serpentine eyes behind a pair of sunglasses that were looking slightly worse for wear.

                  “We’ll get through this, Peri. I know it looks bad, but…”

                  Peridot looked at her incredulously. “ _Looks_ bad? Lapis, it’s the _Apocalypse_. If this isn’t bad, I don’t know what is!”

                  Despite the situation, Lapis grinned. “Well, clearly. You’ve been fraternizing with a demon for the past few thousand years.”

                  “It was pointless for us to keep actively fighting each other. Anyway, it was nice to see a familiar face around every so often.” Peridot managed a weak smile. “Don’t pretend you’re off the hook here. You’ve been associating with an angel for the same amount of time.”

                  Lapis frowned. “Damn. You’ve got me there.”

                  “There are some times that I wish we’d come to our Arrangement sooner. Maybe then, we’d have avoided all this mess.”

                  “You said it yourself, though. It’s the Apocalypse. It was always going to happen, with or without us.”

  
                  “Makes you wonder, doesn’t it? What was the point of all of our fighting? Spreading evil, restoring harmony? If in the end, it was always going to come to this. What do we matter, in the grand scheme of things?” Peridot grabbed Lapis’ other hand between both of her own, and stared imploringly into the demon’s eyes.

                  Lapis paused for a second, collecting her thoughts. Then, she extricated her hand from Peridot’s, and placed it on the angel’s other shoulder, turning her so that they were face-to-face.

                  “What do we matter? Probably not at all, in Their eyes. But we’re here, right now, at the end of everything. We can try and stop it. We _have_ to try and stop it, because we’re the only ones who have lived here since the Beginning. This is as much our home as it is the humans’, and I’m not going to lose it. I’m not going to lose _you_.”

                  Peridot felt tears welling up in her eyes, and didn’t trust herself to speak. Instead, she buried her head in Lapis’ shirt and took a few shuddering breaths.

                  “Hey Peri? I think…we don’t have much time. We need to…”

                  “Right. Yeah. Hang on, let me just…”

                  Peridot pulled away and wiped her eyes on her sleeve. Then she walked over to a patch of errant weeds a few feet away and bent down. When she stood up, she held a sword in her hand, discarded after War had fallen.

                  “I never thought I’d hold this again. I wonder if it still—“ The blade caught fire mid-sentence, sending sparks dancing into the air. Peridot let out a short laugh, and let the sword fall to her side.

                  Lapis smiled, and then glanced around for anything she could use as a weapon. Unfortunately, the closest thing to a blade she could find was a tire iron, but she nonetheless plucked the tool off of the ground, appraising its weight and bludgeoning power. She turned back to Peridot, noting that the wind was beginning to pick up and whip the other woman’s hair into more of a bird’s nest than usual.

                  “I guess this is it, then.”

                  “Probably.”

                  “Hey Peri?”

                  “Yeah?”

                  “In case I never get a chance to say it again…you were pretty cool. You know, for an angel.”

                  “Ah…thanks. You know, you were pretty great yourself…for a demon.”

                  “Thankssss.”

                  The two hesitated for a second, and then reached out at the same time, clasping their free hands together. Lapis raised her tire iron, Peridot raised her sword, which ignited once more into flames. As one, they unfurled their wings—Lapis’ pair were slightly more well-maintained, but they were otherwise identical.

                  They took one more second to look into each others’ eyes, before turning to face the center of the storm, clouds swirling overhead, the air crackling with ozone. Together, the angel and demon stepped forwards, determined to face the forces of Heaven and Hell—with each other by their sides.


End file.
